[wongarsu]

To be fair, they never implied that a sizable portion of businesses using that address are illegitimate (though some people will read it that way). If I say "Twitter is in common use among ISIS members" that doesn't mean that most twitter users are ISIS members.

[buro9]

That's true, they just cited someone else who were less careful: http://interfraud.org/ni_british_connection.htm

But even the source is incorrect. For registered address services you do have to verify company details.

It is only for generic mail forwarding services that you do not have to verify company details.

The difference being that the former is required to help disambiguate mail address to company officials from official government offices, and to ensure successful routing of mail to the correct person (failure to deliver mail from HMRC can result in substantial fines which would be a liability for Companies Made Simple).

The latter is no different from any mail box or mail forwarding service.

It seems that the anti-fraud organisation cited hasn't actually used the service and is unaware of the difference in proof required by them.